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Compass & Pack-Saddle - Book By Lewis B. Miller Synopsis: In May of 1812, two natives of Virginia start out with the McKnight company, a company consisting of a dozen men from various walks of life and nationalities. Beside these, the pack train numbers 114 head of horses and mules, most of them loaded with a pack of wild animal furs or utensils needed for camping en route. They follow the Mississippi River, westward to Boone’s Lick which was the western-most point of American civilization. They follow an Osage Indian guide to where McKnight decides, according to his compass, that they must now trek southwest through the Cimarron Desert. Here the guide refuses to go because he knows well enough that it is called The Journey of Death. Guided by McKnights compass, they undertake this perilous trek which proves its nickname. Here, men and animals alike suffer near-death from want of water. They return to the Arkansas River in time to barely save every soul but lose three animals. Wiser now, McKnight's party follows the river west to the Shining Mountains' (now called the Rocky Mountains) base and turn south toward Santa Fe. On this leg of their journey they meet many enchanting incidents, but the worst is yet to come. In Santa Fe the whole party is arrested and imprisoned by Spanish authorities. The base of this story is true as shown by footnotes. While the McKnight journey was a near disaster, it opened a trail to be known as the Santa Fe Trail, for many years to come. About the Author: Among the least known but better authors of tales of adventure in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century era was Texan Lewis B. Miller, whose stories appeared in serial form in a weekly farm paper, The National Stockman and Farmer, and a regional edition of the publication, The Pennsylvania Stockman and Farmer. Lewis B. Miller was born at Blocker Creek, Cooke County, Texas, on May 27, 1861. His father’s name was Henry Miller and his mother Lurilla Osburn Miller. He received his early education in frontier schools in Texas. In 1881 he obtained an A.B. degree at Texas Christian University. He moved to Marlin, Texas, in 1931, apparently to live with relatives, and died there on July 26, 1933. He was buried at Hico, Texas, which is about 70 miles southwest of Fort Worth. Lewis B. Miller was an excellent writer with a good education, and his stories were very accurate from a geographical and historical standpoint. He wrote adult, young adult tales of adventure, dealings with frontier life, cattle driving. His base writing is about the southwest frontier pushing civilization into the wild west, French and Spanish territories or into the Indian’s hunting grounds. Besides frontier life, his novels cover a wide field of subjects, such as: homesteading, trapping, hunting, fur trading, logging, rafting, gold-seeking, Indian life and about all that confronted frontier life which most Americans have forgotten and many have never known. Many early American statesmen and patriotic pioneers appear in his stories, who are authentic. The frontier stories involved confrontation with the Indians and the hard life of the pioneers. Due to the fact that Miller’s stories appeared originally only in a farm weekly, they did not receive a wide circulation and thus remained unknown to much of the reading public. This neglect has been partially corrected by a small church foundation press in Pennsylvania. They have published a number of soft cover reprints of his work and more are pending. For those who collect adventure books for the pleasure of reading, there can be no better investment than in Lewis B. Miller tales. By Robert E. Walters |